Canadian former producer acquitted of rape charges

The Quebec public prosecutor’s office did not file charges from 13 other alleged victims.

MONTREAL (AFP) - Canadian former producer Gilbert Rozon was acquitted Tuesday in Montreal of sexual assault and harassment charges, for which he faced a prison sentence.

Rozon, 66, was charged in December 2018 for events that allegedly occurred in 1979 involving a victim whose identity was initially not revealed, but revealed her name as Annick Charette.

The Quebec public prosecutor’s office did not file charges from 13 other alleged victims.

In her ruling, Judge Melanie Hebert found that the trial, which pitted two contradictory versions of the events against each other, did not prove Rozon’s guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt."

"This Tuesday, December 15 will remain a somber day for all victims of sexual assault in Quebec," said Charette, who decided to disclose her identity, which had been protected by the justice system.

"I think I am another example of the limits of the justice system in matters of sexual violence," she told reporters.

At the end of the November 6 trial, the representative of the public prosecutor’s office called for Rozon’s conviction, saying that the version of facts that the producer gave during the hearings "defies logic."

But Rozon’s defense team argued its client should be acquitted on the benefit of the doubt, based on the plaintiff’s "inconsistencies" and "memory lapses" in her account of the events, which took place when she was 20 years old.